Apple's range of mobile devices boast Facetime support, but sometimes you just want to send a video message and not make a full-fledged video call. Fortunately this is easy to do. Here's a beginner's guide to sending video mail.

First, you'll need to have an email account set up, and you can learn how to do that here. Once you have that squared away, just follow these steps (or watch the video above):

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Open the camera app on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad (we'll just call it an iPhone from here on out, but it's the same for all of them).

If the front-facing camera (the one looking at you) isn't active, tap the camera switch button at the top of the screen.

On the bottom right of the camera screen, you'll see a toggle switch that goes between a regular camera and a video camera. The video camera is on the right. If the switch isn't set to the video camera, swipe to the right with your finger to change it.

When you're ready, press the red button at the bottom (in the middle) to start recording. When you've finished recording your message, press the same button again. Remember to keep it under 45 seconds or it'll be too big for an email.

In the bottom left corner of the screen, tap the button that looks like a square with an arrow coming out of it. This will give you sharing options. At the top you'll see the email option. Tap that and your iPhone will start to prepare your video.

Once the video's preparation has finished, you'll be presented with a new email message and an icon representing that the video is attached to it. Fill out this email like you normally would—with the email addresses of the people you want to send it to, a subject line, and any text in the body of the message that you'd like to include—and then send the message. Congratulations, you're done!

It may take some time for the video to send but you'll hear a swoosh sound when it's done (assuming your iPhone's sound is on) to tell you the message was delivered.

What other beginner tech support questions do you field or have? Let us know at tips@lifehacker.com. Remember, when you're just starting out computing, there's really little that's too basic to learn.

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